What a way to wake up…
“Good morning honey.”
”Good morning daddy. Has the war started yet?”
In addition to the usual morning chaos that takes place in my house, the making of breakfast, the packing of lunch, the getting dressed for work/school, those were the words I was greeted with.
How does one go about explaining the concept of war to an eight year old? How does one explain who is right and who is wrong in such a situation? Is it one of those us vs. them situations? Do I equate it to sports where there is a winner and loser with only the stakes being raised?
As much as I’d like to shield my kid from being exposed to the horrors of what seems inevitable, it’s impossible. I guess I could jump on the bandwagon and blame the media for this one but that wouldn’t seem right. After all, they have a job to do and this event is newsworthy. Maybe it was in the method in which one of the networks chose to go about it.
As I was tooling around the dial, I came across that paragon of integrity, Fox News who decided to bastardize John Lennon and lead their story with the banner headline “Give War A Chance.” Somewhere Mr. Lennon is not very happy. Let me tell you, as a parent and a human being, neither was I. After years of trying to teach my kid to try and resolve conflict without resorting to violence, without screaming your lungs out, trying to use reason and whatever diplomacy a kid could muster, here was Fox, advertising “Give War A Chance.” Yeah, I know, screen what your kid watches. That my friends, is a lot easier said than done. Its pretty easy to screen images from television or books that she reads, as a matter of fact, that’s simple. It’s a lot harder to screen out a mentality.
I don’t know how I’m going to answer her questions about the upcoming war. I hold out a faint hope that I won’t have to. That we have progressed far enough as human beings to stop killing each other. I doubt it though. Please feel free to /msg me with any suggestions about how I should go about this.
One last thought. Any of you out there who think the events that occurred on September 11, 2001 and the subsequent overblown coverage on the first anniversary of the tragedy on September, 11, 2002 didn’t change the world, you might wanna re-think your position.
Peace to one and all.